Fresh charges: CB to quiz Tirupati again

BHUBANESWAR: The Crime Branch is likely to take Hi-Tech Group chairman Tirupati Panigrahi on remand again next week for further interrogation, even as the first round of two-day questioning ended on Sunday.

Panigrahi and two directors of his real estate firm Rajdhani Estates and Promoters Private Limited , were sent back to judicial custody on Monday. They were arrested on December 25 for allegedly backtracking on providing residential plots to a man in 2009.

ADG (Crime Branch) B K Sharma said a second interrogation is required as another case is registered against him in connection with a separate 'fraudulent' land scheme at Gudiapokhari near Pipili. "Earlier we took him on remand for cheating in a land scheme in Sundarpada area. We will interrogate him again in another land scheme that he floated in Soubhagyanagar on the outskirts of the city," Sharma said.

Ever since Panigrahi was arrested, the CB has so far received 274 complaints from duped land buyers, who coughed up crores of rupees under seven land schemes in Bhubaneswar, Jatni, Gopalpur and Puri. While two cases have already been registered, CB is in the process of filing five more cases based on the complaints over five controversial land schemes.

After the phase one of interrogation, the CB came to know that Panigrahi's real estate company collected more than Rs two crore from the 274 complainants with the false promise of giving them plots and flats, sources said. The investigating agency also found that Panigrahi illegally diverted crores of rupees to three charitable trusts, which manage his fleet of educational institutes.

Earlier Panigrahi rubbished the allegations. He had told the media that he was falsely implicated in the case.

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